Ducks open season and hearts to superfan with cancer, then win for her

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Katie Hawley looks up at the Ducks’ Corey Perry during a pregame ceremony. Hawley, a San Juan Hills High student who is battling cancer, was selected as the team’s Honorary “21st Duck.” (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“21st Duck” Katie Hawley poses with her favorite Ducks player Rickard Rakell before Thursday night’s game. The Ducks were playing Arizona in the season opener at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA on Wednesday, October 4, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“21st Duck” Katie Hawley poses with her favorite Duck player Rickard Rakell before Thursday night’s game. The Ducks were playing Arizona in the season opener at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA on Wednesday, October 4, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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Riley Hawley talked with Ducks announcer Kent French, right, and Rickard Rakell before the game. The Ducks were playing Arizona in the season opener at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA on Thursday, October 5, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Katie Hawley stands between Ducks’ Corey Perry and Rckard Rakell in a pregame ceremony. The Ducks were playing Arizona in the season opener at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA on Thursday, October 5, 2017. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Katie Hawley looks up at the Ducks’ Corey Perry during a pregame ceremony. Hawley, a San Juan Hills High student who is battling cancer, was selected as the team’s Honorary “21st Duck.” (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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On Thursday night, wearing an official jersey, Katie skated onto the ice at Honda Center with the Ducks, the No. 21 on her back signifying her status as the team’s honorary 21st player.

The final one introduced during pregame ceremonies, she was escorted to center ice by her favorite Duck, Rickard Rakell, and Corey Perry, the trio’s arrival completing a circle of teammates around the club’s giant logo.

On opening night, the Ducks first opened their hearts and let a beautiful story flow free.

“This distracts me,” Katie said. “It gets my mind away from thinking about the cancer and how I’m sick. The Ducks have gone so far above and beyond in showing me that I do have a reason to live.”

Maybe you don’t root for this team. But, for one night, it was impossible not to be a Ducks fan.

And it was equally impossible, three periods and a three-goal comeback later, to not see the beauty of a story that ended with Rakell scoring the game-winner in the final minutes, as television cameras captured Katie screaming in disbelief from her seat.

“It’s kind of a Cinderella story, I guess,” Rakell said after completing the Ducks’ improbable – and yes, fairytale – 5-4 win. “It couldn’t have ended any better.”

Added Katie, with a voice hoarse from all the delightful shrieking, “I knew he was going to score. I knew he wanted to so badly.”

The diagnosis came when she was 9. Neuroblastoma. It began as a stomach ache, one that lasted for two weeks until a doctor at an urgent care facility felt the first tumor, in her belly.

Katie has since had two tumors removed from her abdomen. The disease also has appeared in her hips and spine and twice in her skull.

She has undergone at least a dozen major surgeries, 40-plus blood transfusions and maybe 50 chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Maybe more.

In December, when doctors informed her that the cancer was back again, Katie sat with her parents and talked about wanting to join Jesus in heaven.

“It was a shock for her to have doctors say for a third time, ‘We’ve got to go back into treatment,’” Bob said. “It’s tiring. This has been eight years now. It has been a difficult journey. But we don’t have any other choice.”

The Hawleys have tried experimental procedures, including one that required several round-trips to New York for a series of seven injections. Nothing has stopped a disease so insidious that it can remain hidden even from bone scans.

Katie is a Courageous Kid with the Jessie Rees Foundation, a non-profit organization that operates under the motto “Never Ever Give Up.”

She speaks on their behalf to others with cancer. She has helped raise awareness through the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

She also started a program called Stuff Our Slippers in which she and her mother, Mary Kay, have distributed slippers filled with toys to kids at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

“I wanted to give back even though I was still struggling,” said Katie, who turned 17 in March and is a senior at San Juan Hills High. “I wanted to give back in the best way I could. Seeing a smile on their faces would make us feel happier and make our day easier, too.”

No, this was not a girl who, ultimately, was going to give up.

About a year ago, on the occasion of their one-month anniversary, Katie’s boyfriend, Jacob Brandon, bought her tickets for a Ducks game.

She noticed during warmups that only one of the players seemed to be putting the puck in the net.

“I was like, ‘OK, No. 67 is going to score. I know it,’” she recalled saying that night. “I just had a weird initial instinct that he was going to score and be really good for the year.”

Rakell did score in that game, one of the 33 goals he had last season to lead the Ducks.

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Over the summer, through the Jessie Rees Foundation, Rakell sent Katie a video from his home in Sweden wishing her well and encouraging her to continue fighting.

Last week, he surprised her with an in-person visit informing her that she had been selected to be the 21st Duck.

“It was super sweet that he had time to come see a little 17-year-old girl and be as kind as he was,” Katie said. “I’ve met a lot of celebrities, but my mom said he was the only one where my face actually turned red and I got super nervous.”

To understand the significance of that statement, consider that this is a girl who, through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, once spent 45 minutes hanging out with Justin Bieber.

And, now, she’s an Anaheim Duck, Katie walking the orange carpet with the rest of the players before the game, posing for pictures and signing autographs despite repeatedly telling the screaming crowd, “I’m not a celebrity. I’m really not.”

“Having Katie’s endorphins happy and focused on something else … it takes away the desperation and the anxiety,” Mary Kay said of her daughter. “It allows her to keep fighting. It really does.”

On Monday, Katie goes back to the hospital for another round of treatment. Behind her will be Rickard Rakell and the rest of the Ducks, a team that didn’t quit on opening night surrounding a girl who refused to quit on so much more.

Jeff Miller has been a sports columnist since 1998, having previously written for the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. He began at the Register in 1995 as beat writer for the Angels.

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